Hospice Care: A Case Study

The primary focus of hospice care is to promote comfort and dignity at the end of life (Torphy, Burke, & Golub, 2012). In hospice care, it is one of the nurse’s job to ensure that the patient gets adequate pain relief. However, this can be difficult to implement in an outpatient setting. In the scenario provided, the patient’s family is preventing the patient from being medicated properly. This issue of family control over the patient’s medication can lead to a couple of possible negative situations. First, there is a possibility for under medication. This defeats the purpose of hospice care because it causes the patient undue pain and suffering. Next possibility is overmedication. This problem can lead to toxicity, which can cause a deterioration in the patient’s condition or it can even lead to death. Apart from these two situations, improper family control of medication, can also lead to the issue of diversion. This puts family members that divert medication at a greater for risk for addiction and overdose.
Pain is a very complex yet personal experience (Lilley, Collins, & Snyder, 2017). That is why patient advocacy is critical in this topic. Nurses need to inform the family members it is not about what they feel rather is more important to consider what the patient feels about his/her pain levels and its management. With education, the nurse can then enlist the help of family members in medication administration. As much as possible we want to incorporate them in the planning and implantation of the patients care plan. We always want to establish a positive and inclusive family environment especially in terminally ill patients. To improve outcomes nurses can also be more vigilant in monitoring of the